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Friday, March 28, 2003

By Gerry Dulac, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

MINNEAPOLIS -- Just a day earlier, Pitt Coach Ben Howland called Marquette guard Dwyane Wade a "great pro player," a future star in the NBA.

But, for the opening 20 minutes of the NCAA Midwest Region semifinal last night at the Metrodome, Wade looked nothing more than like another victim of Pitt's lockdown defense. He made just 1 of 5 shots from the field and was held to only 2 points.

"It's a long year, a long game," Wade said. "Just because you had a bad first half doesn't mean you'll have a bad second half. I kept that in mind."

That was the last time he looked ordinary.

In an extraordinary one-man performance, Wade came alive in the second half and began to look like the two-time Conference USA player of the year. He scored 20 of his team-high 22 points in the second half, including 10 in a row at one dominating point, to lead Marquette to a 77-74 victory that ended Pitt's season.

"That's why he's probably the best player in the nation," said guard Travis Diener.

Wade, a 6-foot-5 senior, took the game over when he scored 10 consecutive points in 2:36 in the second half. When he was finished, Marquette had a 49-42 lead.

Before Wade's outburst, center Robert Jackson scored the first seven points to start the second half for Marquette. That meant Marquette's top two players combined to score their team's first 17 points in the second half. The string was broken when forward Steve Novak made a 3-pointer with 12:36 remaining.

"Ultimately what cost us was our defense," Howland said. "That's what hurt us. We were a little bit anxious trying to make plays instead of being solid."

"If I'm struggling in the first half, I have confidence to keep shooting in the second half," Wade said.

But his most dramatic shot came when Wade was being held by Brown, Pitt's junior guard/forward, as he was driving down the lane. As he fell to the floor, Wade flipped the ball toward the basket and it went in, setting up a 3-point play and a 60-51 lead.

"He's got the ability to take over the game at any time," said Diener, who was held to four points. "He carried us for a while. That's the kind of player he is. He can carry us for the whole game."

But Wade wasn't done. He scored five consecutive points to pad the Marquette lead to its biggest of the game, 70-59, highlighting the spurt with a breakaway dunk.

Then, after an 11-1 Pitt run closed the margin to 73-72 with 56 seconds remaining, Wade made a driving shot in the lane with 24 seconds left to put the Marquette lead at 75-72.

"Travis gave me the ball on a handoff, and I wasn't going to settle for a jump shot," Wade said, describing the play. " I saw an opening real quick. I used a move I used last year. I hadn't used it all year. It was a good time to use it."

Pitt looked as if it would have an easy time with Marquette, jumping out to leads of 11-6 and 17-8. But the Golden Eagles went on a 14-4 run, thanks to 3-pointers from Novak, freshman guard Karon Bradley and forward Todd Townsend, to make it 22-21.

That's where Chevon Troutman came to life.

He scored in the lane off a nice pass from Knight, then converted both ends of a one-and-one to make it 25-22. Marquette came right back with two baskets to make it 27-25, Julius Page hit his first 3-pointer and Troutman, who finished with 15 points scored in the lane again, taking a bounce pass from Knight to give Pitt a 30-27 lead.

Page, meantime, was holding Diener, the tournament's leading scorer, to just one field goal in the first half. And Brown, Pitt's other lock-down specialist, held Wade without a field goal after he scored on an easy dunk for Marquette's first points.

That didn't last long, however.

"He's a great scorer," forward Scott Merritt, who finished with 17 points, said of Wade. "He's going to make things happen. That's why I feel he's the best player in America."

"We've had an excellent year because [the players] got a ton of courage and they never get rattled," Marquette Coach Tom Crean said. "We knew we were going against a team that wouldn't beat themselves. Ben Howland is a great coach. But they never flinched."

Not with Wade.